Never Say Never

by Alison Tyler

  His manicurist was a maniac, maybe. She stuck his fingers inside a massive fish then tried to trim his cock with a pair of nail scissors.

  Though mostly what I take from this theory is the sure and certain knowledge that I am going insane. This mystery is driving me insane. It’s the only thing I don’t know about him, the only thing he doesn’t give me. And so, like Bluebeard’s wife before me, I’m desperate to open the cupboard door.

  I just need a plan. One that’s better than the plans I’ve tried before—which, to be fair, have not been very impressive. But this one I’m thinking of now…I think it is impressive. Or at least, I think it’s good enough to get him in some way.

  But I have to time it right. I have to be as sly as a fox, as careful and sensuous and slow as running syrup—and I’ll be perfectly honest. I’m none of those things. I don’t know how to seduce. I’m not sure how to be cool. Usually when we have sex, it’s me who goes completely crazy.

  But I know enough about him now to at least try to make him that insane. I start with lasagna for dinner, because he loves lasagna. And maybe, yes, maybe I persuade him to have a second glass of wine. A second glass won’t make him drunk, but it will loosen him up a little. By the time we get to dessert his limbs are all lax and he’s smiling in that easy way. He’s saying things he wouldn’t usually, like I can see your nipples straining through that dress. Do you have anything on under there, Becca?

  I don’t.

  And then once we’ve cleared the table and danced around each other for a bit—you know the sort of dance I mean, where the air kind of crackles between you and every step hints at what’s to come—I kiss him in the way he likes the most.

  On tiptoe, stretching and straining for his mouth—near climbing him, like the massive mountain he is. And the moment our lips are close enough to brush, that’s what I do. I just brush them together. I kiss him with my wine-rich breath…with just the suggestion of my skin, and the slick warmth of my mouth. Like there’s a force field between us, an invisible force field.

  In fact, that’s exactly what he calls it. It was a game we played when we first met, and I wasn’t sure if he liked me that way and he wasn’t sure if he should just go for it, and one night he said: There’s something between us. You can’t see it with the naked eye. It’s electric and deadly, and the second we actually connect it will go off. It will kill us both.

  Now, now. Touch me without triggering it.

  So I did. I do. I kiss him without kissing him, and once it’s had the desired effect—once I can feel him pressing hard and insistent against my belly—I disentangle myself and dart away. I lead him to the bedroom with a trail of my clothes.

  Or rather, a trail of my single item of clothing.

  Because that’s all I’ve got on. There’s just that single puddle of red silk for him to find, before he gets to me—bare and brazen on the bed. It’s not a cupboard or a table or the middle of Marks and Spencer’s, but judging by his expression, it will do.

  Oh, it will do all right.

  Typically, I don’t like to be so naked. When I get out of the shower he’ll sometimes try to tug the towel away from me, just to catch a glimpse of the things I’m too shy to show. He buys me underwear that’s hardly there in the hopes that I’ll wear it, and spends much of his time trying to tell me how gorgeous my body is.

  So I’m going to brave my fears and give him what he wants, in return for the things I crave. It’s only fair, after all. Give and take, back and forth—those ideas were practically in our wedding vows. Why not make the most of them here?

  “Is it my birthday?” he asks, teasingly. I think he’s expecting some punch line, here, some joke that I’m going to spring on him. We’re all about having fun and playing games, after all. It’s just that I’m craving a different sort of game altogether, right now.

  “Yeah, it’s your birthday,” I tell him. “Come and get your present.”

  But it’s the wrong move. I can see he’s wary, now, as he slinks toward the bed. Half of him is trapped by the usual problems, the other half is stuffed full of lasagna and wine and couldn’t care less. It’s like watching a tiger creeping towards its prey, if the prey in question had claws, and the tiger was a little tipsy.

  And I’m enjoying the show immensely.

  He gets to the bed and makes a grab for my bare leg, but I’m ready for him. I pull away before he can get halfway up my thigh, which practically guarantees his next move. He kneels on the mattress and aims for something more—maybe a long slow slide over my breast and my side and my hip. It’s a tried and tested maneuver, and usually I’d be helpless to resist.

  But this time I have to be strong—and I am. I dart away again, so quick he can’t keep up. He simply falls into the place I just vacated, instead, and then he’s all mine. He doesn’t even flinch when I straddle his thighs. And I get no word of disapproval for the kiss I leave on the curve of his throat…or the clothes I remove, as I do.

  It’s only when I start to work my way farther down that he protests—but I’m prepared for that, too. I know what will succeed, where previously I failed. I just have to make him think that’s where I’m going, and then at the last possible second—when he’s almost used to the idea, and perhaps on the verge of acquiescing—I bypass his erection altogether.

  I kiss right past it, over the heavy, solid shape of his thigh and down to the insides of his knees. He’s extra sensitive there, but I don’t linger long. I work my way back up, instead, finding all sorts of fun places as I do. He likes feeling the slippery stroke of my tongue on the slant of muscle just above his hip, and a hint of teeth on his sharp little nipples.

  There are a million erogenous zones all over his body, and I go for all of them—all of them except one. Oh, that delicious, delectable one, which calls to me each time I curve my way around it. Usually I’d have tried for it a dozen times by now.

  But I’m banking on a certain effect, by behaving this way. A certain effect that I know only too well, from a thousand days of being denied it. Force yourself to avoid something, and suddenly it’s all you can see—and he sees it, all right.

  I can hear the frustration in his voice before he’s even said a word. He’s now a cacophony of choked cries and desperate murmurs, each one greedier than the last. Any second now and he’s going to try to flip me over, to haul me into a position he likes better than the one we’re in.

  But he’s not going to get it, this time—and I think he knows it. The effort he puts into grabbing me is halfhearted. And when I dance away in the middle of his second attempt, then slide completely off the bed…he seems to know he’s beaten.

  He eyes me with this half-wounded look on his face, but I brace myself against it. I wait, until he’s blustery and red-faced and ready to do anything, anything at all. Oh, he’d move heaven and earth to get me back on that bed—and he does.

  He lies back down for me, without a word. There’s no shrugging me off, or subtle diversions. When it comes to the crunch, he grits his teeth and lets it happen—which seems really unbearable, until I actually do the thing.

  I lick him from the base of his beautiful cock, all the way to the tip. And then I glance up, expecting to see him furious and full of discomfort, in a way that I know will make me stop. Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? I can lay the trap and play this game, and get him to give in for just a second.

  But I can’t push him to the point where he hates me.

  So I guess it’s lucky that he doesn’t seem to at all.

  There’s still a tightness in his jaw, of course. And he’s balled his hands into fists at his sides. But when I lick a second time, I actually see the strain go out of his body. Those burning eyes turn soft, and warm—as though he never hated the idea of this at all. He was just waiting all this time, for me to break through.

  So I do. I lick him again, and again, soft and slow at first but then with more eagerness. I just can’t hold back, after a while. He tastes like the salt-sweet of his skin
, and then of that familiar and oh-so-exciting thing.

  He’s so aroused that he’s leaking precome, in long, thin trails. And the more I lick…the wetter I make it… The rougher I am…the more he gives me—in every single way. My mouth floods with that taste, and those solid hips of his buck up, seeking more of my heat. In fact, after a second of restrained desire he goes one better than that.

  He actually forces himself into my mouth, too rough for me to take. And that hand I can feel in my hair? He’s using it to keep me there. As though it was me who hated doing this, all of this time. He was the one who dreamt of it day and night, day and night.

  And finally he’s getting what he’s lusted after, for hours and hours on end.

  That hand fists in my hair, nearly painful but not quite. Those hips jerk toward me, over and over and, oh god…the feel of him in my mouth. He’s so thick, now, and so swollen—almost as though he’s going to come. He’s going to just shudder, suddenly, then spurt all over my tongue, and though I know it can’t really be the case, the thought is so exciting.

  My body curls in on itself, just thinking about it. That usually tepid place between my legs thrums, and thrums, and is completely unprepared when he actually does just do it. No hours of patient coaxing, or vigorous bouts of glorious sex to help him let go.

  He just goes off like a man on the edge of oblivion, mouth working soundlessly around words he can’t express, body flushed from belly to hairline. It’s so crazy and so intense—and most of all so sudden—that I’m almost scared. I almost back away and miss the thing I’ve been longing for.

  But it’s him who saves me.

  He holds me there, with that hand in my hair. He gives me the words I’ve longed for.

  God, please don’t stop, he says, the way I usually do, for him. Please, he says. Please suck my cock.

  Who knew sentences as simple as those could mean so much? I feel as though I’ve run a marathon, or otherwise won some sort of race—which is ridiculous, I know. He even finds it so, when I try to explain some time later. It wasn’t that big a deal, honey, he tells me. An old girlfriend once caught me with her teeth—nothing more, nothing less.

  And then I feel silly. I feel silly, for thinking that there was something he wouldn’t allow. He’s my husband, my wonderfully warm and witty husband. He likes his toast covered in jam and folds the paper in three when he reads it. He doesn’t like to drive on Sundays but will always take me out if I really need to go somewhere.

  All I have to do is ask.

  In everything, always, all I have to do is ask.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CLOSE YOUR EYES—

  BLINDFOLDS

  But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart.

  —ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

  To me, blindfolds are not even part of kinky sex. They’re simply sex. Wednesday sex. Sunday afternoon sex. Tuesday in the coffee room sex. How erotic it is to remove one sense. And how easy—with ties, nylons, a sleep mask, a scarf or simply the command, “Don’t open your eyes. Don’t you dare. Don’t even think about peeking.”

  Oooh, I just got a little wet.

  I’m more than a fan—I’m a fanatic. A quick search of my current files shows fifty-five stories featuring blindfolds, like this snippet from my novel Blue Valentine:

  Next night, in bed, it’s me and Justin playing another one of our favorite boudoir games—a guessing game complete with a sumptuous fabric blindfold and an assortment of unusual and unexpected items residing on our bedside table. I’m the one in the dark, this time—literally in the dark beneath the blindfold—and I feel Justin raking different objects over my naked skin. My nerve endings are alive and crackling while my mind is busy trying to place each sensation and make sense of it.

  “Come on,” Justin says. “Guess.”

  I feel confused in the most sexy way imaginable.

  “I can’t,” I tell him.

  “Try,” he insists.

  Although I’m settled comfortably on the ruby-red satin sheets in the center of the bed, I am desperately off balance.

  I take readers into a little darker place in my novella Banging Rebecca:

  Sean got the deal first. He understood the implication in my offer, as I knew he would. He was the one to let his lips go up, in that trademark half smirk, half smile to say to Derrick, “Wait here, for a second. Just wait,” while he took me to his room and tied me down on the bed and chose his favorite blindfold from the drawer. And he was the one to whisper in my ear, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, slut. But I believe you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”

  Even when my characters are not wearing blindfolds, I occasionally pretend that they are, like in this clip from “Last Call”:

  Now I sense the men moving around me. Declan tells me to open my mouth, and I do, not surprised at all to find a naked cock at my lips. I keep my eyes closed still, as if I have a blindfold on, because it’s still easier that way.

  Blindfolds can lend themselves to playfulness, like in a story I wrote for Bondage on a Budget called “Your Beautiful Launderette”:

  Lisa nodded to Janina, and with the grace of a magician, she produced a silk scarf that she used to capture my wrists. Another one, this time in Lisa’s hands, was used to blindfold me. Then they went to work. Mouths on my mouth, on my nipples, my ribs, between my legs. Tongues flicking and probing, making circles or spirals, delicious designs. I felt myself tense and release as they continued their probing of my private parts.

  Whenever a blindfold turns up in a story I’m reading, I perk up and take notice.

  In “Sense of Touch,” Tenille Brown wrote: Abigail’s hands were her eyes, since her own were covered in a navy bandana. In darkness asserted by her lover, she lay, arms outstretched like angel wings, legs spread-eagled on the bed. She reached out, feeling for Karina’s figure in the dark.

  Between Abigail’s legs there was heat that mingled with moisture. Then there was Karina crawling on top of the covers, up between Abigail’s thighs. Karina was careful and quiet like a cat.

  Abigail writhed, blind and impatient, unable to keep still until…

  …she felt the light brush of a feather on her pert nipples.

  It traveled down her torso…

  …flirted with her thighs…

  …and finally teased her center.

  Was the feather pink? Or black? Was it long? Or short?

  Abigail didn’t know and she wouldn’t, until her lover said so, until Karina removed the bandana and let Abigail see the light of their daytime play.

  In Molly Moore’s “The Whip,” we get a real feel for what darkness is like:

  I can hear Him moving around the room, steady deliberate movements as if I am not even there. The darkness of the blindfold leaves me only with my hearing to anticipate what he will do. The sliding of a drawer, wood against wood, tells me he is looking for a toy, but what of me, I am His toy. Lying on the bed, wrists and ankles cuffed and clipped to the four corners, exposed and vulnerable and trembling…with a fearful lust.

  The slightest of touches on my back makes me shiver, the lightest of tickles from something I can’t identify. A grumbling of frustration escapes my lips. I hate not being able to see, it robs me of my ability to anticipate. Many times before I have pulled the blindfold from my eyes in sheer desperation to see, which is why I find myself bound like this now, my previous behavior having sealed my fate this time.

  Dilo Keith’s novelette Make Mine to Go effortlessly mixes bondage and blindfolds:

  “It’s okay, sweetheart.” He kissed the back of my neck. “Keep your eyes closed.”

  I found the soothing strictness odd, yet strangely arousing. Justin was obviously in control, but nothing he did suggested pain, bondage or even the roughness we both craved in many of the scenes. Even so, his manner was erotically commanding.

  He wrapped a silk scarf over my eyes and around my head, knotting it by my ear. Long tails flowed over one shoulder and down my bac
k. At his instruction to move my head, the delicate fabric danced across my skin.

  Donna George Storey said, “This is my favorite scene from a much-reprinted story, called ‘The Blindfold,’ and this part’s from real life!”

  Not long after that you asked me to kneel when you put on the blindfold. Then you went on to position my body with your hands, telling me to keep my back straight, my shoulders down, my chin up. You told me not to move, not even to smile. You proceeded to caress me, starting at my cheeks just below the edge of the blindfold. You traced my lips with one fingertip, drew ovals on my chin, brushed my neck and collarbone with feathery strokes. I managed to hold myself still until your hands moved to my breasts. That’s when you had to remind me of the rules and rearrange my body in the proper position. You even reprimanded me for breathing too quickly. “Slow, baby, nice and slow,” you whispered, smoothing the tension from my lips and jaw until I was quiet.

  Whether you simply close your eyes—or ask your partner to do the same—or take the luscious leap into using actual accoutrements, consider playing with the concept of darkness. You may be surprised at the beauty of the multicolored erotic fireworks that burst behind shut lids when one of you can’t see.

  TANTALIZING TIPS

  •Start slowly. Simply keep your eyes closed—or request your partner do the same. Graduate to using a tie, scarf, or actual blindfold. Bask in the sensation of being deprived of one sense to heighten the rest.

  •Play games. Everything’s different in the dark. Try your favorite positions without being able to see what’s coming next. (It may be you!)

  •Incorporate blindfolds into vanilla sex as well as BDSM.

  FICTION: BLINDFOLDS

  BLIND LUST

  KRISTINA LLOYD

  The flyer had been pinned to our kitchen corkboard for weeks: Wine-tasting for beginners at Greenhalls.